Arc Raiders received 'substantial negative PvP sentiment' during testing, causing the devs to second-guess its big pivot before realising it was really frustration with weapons and matchmaking

After Embark Studios' "playtest battles" and slew of competing plans caused it to pivot Arc Raiders away from its PvE boss-killing roots, it decided to add PvP to spice things up. While the rest isn't quite history (development was still far from simple), it would be a defining factor in how it became the PvPvE extraction shooter it is today.

In a GDC talk, Arc Raiders production director Caio Braga revealed that it almost walked this decision back. Once Embark had moved away from its scattershot ideas for a PvE boss rush, it conducted a bunch of "validation" tests, which were effectively playtest surveys during its development, to gauge its progress.

Braga recalled one of the first rounds of feedback they received from this process, which happened right after "a big reset" that added PvP. On the surface, the data showed a "substantial negative PvP sentiment," the team believed, causing them to doubt whether it was the right direction: "They didn't like the PvP".

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"A lot of our initial conversation was about whether we should have even done this reset. Should we add PvP to this?"

However, Braga explained that, after more thorough analysis and reflection on the data, the team realised that the PvP itself wasn't the root problem. Rather, it was the weapon balancing and feedback of the PvP engagements, and how solos and squads were pitted against each other.

After rigorous weapon balancing to make PvP more satisfying, and ultimately solving the solos versus squads conundrum via separate queues, it clicked. Well, during development at least.

Once Arc Raiders was released into the wild with hundreds of thousands of players giving it a go, the PvP versus PvE debate cropped back up. It's still one of the most divisive features of Arc Raiders five months later, with a large number of players asking for a PvE mode. I'm sure some players wished Embark had never made that fateful connection between PvP, weapon balancing, and matchmaking, and axed PvP instead.